1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to virtual-slide creating devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in medical fields, such as disease diagnosis, it is necessary during diagnosis to grasp the entire image of a subject of observation, such as tissue or cell, as well as to grasp the microstructure of a limited small part thereof. Virtual slides are known as a method for efficiently observing an entire image and a microscopic observation image (e.g., see Patent Literature 1).
A virtual slide makes it possible to observe a virtual slide image that looks as if an image of an entire subject of observation were captured at once, by repeatedly capturing partial microscopic images of the subject at a high magnification factor while shifting the image capturing area such that adjacent images partially overlap each other, and processing the acquired multiple microscopic images and joining them together without displacements.
In a virtual-slide creating method disclosed in Patent Literature 1, positions for capturing enlarged images are set in advance such that images will be captured fully covering an entire subject of observation, and a microscope controller acquires enlarged images according to a movement pattern set in advance.